The senior Elder administered a mental nudge of admonishment to the pair - a laser bolt that would have holed the Falcon, deflectors and all.
“Think nothing of it, Senwannus'gourkahipaff, your Eldership; they're not the first underlings to get carried away with borrowed authority. What can we do for you?”
“We are,” Fey replied, “given to understand that you have brought nutrients to replace those being destroyed by others of your kind outside the StarCave. Is this correct?”
Lando nodded, a gesture he wasn't sure the Oswaft could see or understand. They'd left the Falcon parked outside - although now he wondered why he'd bothered as there was plenty of room for her in the Cave-and jetted in to meet the Elders. “That's right, sir. Not very much, but it's only a beginning. And besides, I think I've figured out a way to get the Navy off your back.”
“But why should you bother yourself” Fey asked. “And why should you oppose the actions and interests of your own kind in this matter? I'm afraid we do not understand you, Captainmaster and until we do, we cannot accept this gift you offer.” The Elders were at least a kilometer across, Fey being slightly smaller than Sen. Lando felt silly negotiating with them - it was rather like carrying on a conversation with a large apartment building. But from earlier conversations with Lehesu, he was prepared for their attitude and these very questions.
“Well, aside from the fact that Vuffi Raa and I have grown rather fond of young Lehesu, here, we consider it a sort of a game.” Lando wished, as he hung in space beside the huge ray-like creature, that there was some provision for smoking a cigar in a spacesuit. He felt better making business talk if he could smoke.
“A game? Please explain what you mean.”
“Sure, Sen. I understand that you folks like mental puzzles. Well, my folks do, too. Only we've found a way to make them more interesting and challenging: we turn them into games. That's where somebody else tries to solve the puzzle first, or better, or opposes your solution of it while he tries to work out his own.”
“Fascinating,” Sen mused, almost to himself. He turned to Fey. “Have you ever conceived of such a thing?”
No answer came from the Elder. To a being so ancient, a new concept came as something of a shock.
“Right,” Lando said, jetting closer to the pair of aliens. “And just to make it more fascinating, we try to play for something a little better than the sheer joy of solving the puzzle.”
“Such as what?” both Elders said at once.
“Well, permit me to demonstrate, friends. Now take the game of sabacc. Am I missing something obvious here,” Lando offered conversationally as he took another “card” and the others considered their hands, “or are you people completely resigned to dying?”
A pale pink tinge suffused through Lehesu at Lando's boldness toward the Elders, but he kept his peace, trusting the gambler. Sen and Fey both performed the equivalent of looking up from their cards.
Lando's helmet indicators said he was being brushed lightly by twin radar beams. He knew the beings were far from stupid. Their transparent bodies made it easier and more difficult at the same time to figure out their internal arrangements, but from what he'd seen, he guessed that about two-thirds of their mass was brain, and pretty astute brain at that.
“Ah yes,” Sen answered finally, “that was the reason you were demonstrating sabacc to us. I had become so fascinated with the game itself I had quite forgotten that its purpose was explaining why you wished to help us. So, you play a great sabacc game with your own kind out there, and we are a part of it. No, my friend, we do not wish to die, but there seems little alternative. I'll take a card, Starshipmillenniumfalcon, if you please.” The ship, apparently unimpressed that it had been granted status not only as a person but as an Elder among the Oswaft, duly blipped out a signal representing one of the seventy-eight sabacc cards, and fell silent again.
“There are plenty of alternatives, friend, there always are. The first, of course, is that you can give up and die. I'm glad to hear you reject it. That's a beginning, anyway. Sabacc! That makes twenty-three million you owe me. Can we take a break? I have to visit certain facilities aboard my ship, and we can carry on this conversation from there.”
He jetted across the Cave of the Elders, leaving the Oswaft behind, climbed onto the hull of the Falcon and into the airlock hatch, where Vuffi Raa greeted him. “Patch the intercom into the ship-to-ship, will you? I need a cigar to think properly, and the powwow has reached a critical point.”
“Yes, Master, I've been listening. What are we going to do with twenty-three million credits worth of precious stones? I don't believe we have room in the-”
“We'll figure that out when there's a point to it. Right now staying alive gets top priority.” He'd unsealed his helmet and hung it on a rack, and, retaining the rest of his suit, climbed down into the lounge, where for once he left the gravity on, enjoying the feel of some weight under him.
“The second alternative,” he continued, once contact was reestablished, “is to fight. You folks have some impressive talents; your size alone is pretty terrifying, at least for people of my size, but I think-”
“Captainmasterlandocalrissian,” interrupted Sen, “we are not a fighting people, in fact the concept is nearly as new to us as that of gaming - and somewhat related, I would guess. In any event, there is a third way...”
“And what would that be?” the gambler asked as he slowly and deliberately singed the business end of a cigar, keeping the flame well away from the tip.
“Negotiation. You will recall mention of a third Elder, Bhoggihalysahonues? At this moment, she and a delegation of other Oswaft have appeared at the mouth of the StarCave and are signaling for a peace-conference with your fleet. We wish to ask upon what terms-”
“You bet your apostrophe I remember Boggy, and I can predict exactly what's going to happen, Sen. The Navy wants you dead, old beanbag, and that's the only terms they're going to settle for. I've seen their work on other occasions, and you can believe me when I-”
“This is much as I had surmised,” the second Elder said, “and I opposed the attempt, yet we are an open and free people and would not prevent our third Elder from trying what she might. Yet you have mentioned other alternatives to dying, fighting, and negotiating.”
“There's running away.”
“What, and leave the ThonBoka?” So much emotion loaded the response that Lando couldn't tell which Oswaft it had come from. He poured himself a glass of fruit juice (spacesuits tend to dehydrate one a bit) and sat back down, puffing on his cigar. Vuffi Raa was forward, keeping his big red eye on the controls. It was difficult but important to remember that they were still in deep space. He could see how the Oswaft thought of the place as a safe haven.
“I don't know,” he said at last. “I gather from Lehesu's experiences that you folks aren't biologically tied to the place. It's an alternative to dying, isn't it?”
A long, long silence ensued while the massive brains outside processed his heresy. Finally: “I am not sure, Lando, that it is a desirable alternative. We are the ThonBoka; the ThonBoka is the Oswaft. Would you willingly be driven out of your home, accept an eternity of wandering-”
He laughed. “Sen, I accepted wandering as a way of life a long time ago. It beats the Core out of working for a living.” The gambler mused. There were a lot of strange life-forms in the galaxy, ranging, in the matter of size alone, from these gigantic creatures, the largest he'd ever heard of, down to the tiny Crokes of... well, something-or-other. He couldn't remember the system. What made it interesting was that in his travels he'd observed that the biggest critters were almost invariably the most gentle and timid.
Well, it made sense: if you were little, you had to learn to be tough. If you were big, it didn't matter. He guessed he'd always thought of himself as somewhere in the middle.
“Okay, yeah. Well, what if you appeared to do one or another of these things - sort of like the way I taught you to bluff in sabacc? Say
you looked like you were going to destroy the fleet. Or, say you looked like you we're all dead? I hate to bring up a touchy subject, but Lehesu tells me you folks sort of disintegrate when you - die, drift away in a cloud of dust?”
Another long, uncomfortable silence. At long last, the daring Lehesu spoke for his Elders. “That's correct, Lando, we return to our constituent molecules. Not the happiest of thoughts. Why, is it important?”
Finishing his cigar, Lando stood, walked back to the ladder and up to the airlock, screwed on his helmet, and went outside The Cave of the Elders floated beside the Falcon like a fantastic decorated egg, a million brilliant colors, a billion gleaming facets. He drifted toward the entrance and faced the three giant beings who waited for him there.
“Yes, it could be very important. It means you don't leave any remains behind that can be detected against the normal molecular background of space. It means they won't be looking for any stiffs.”
“Stiffs?” the three said at once.
“Bodies, corpses, DOAS, meat, corpora delicti. Tell me, what are conditions like out by the wall of the StarCave?”
If Oswaft had been capable of blinking at a rapid change of subject, Sen, at least would have done so. “Why, not terribly different from here. A bit colder but not uncomfortably so.”
“Vuffi Raa,” Lando said into the radio in his suit, “get me some scanning data on the nebula wall, will you? I've been working on an idea. Sen, Fey, Lehesu, can you people get through the wall at all?”
Lehesu replied, being the only one with any practical experience in the matter. “It is all but impenetrable. One cannot - what is your expression? - 'starhop' because one cannot see where one is going. It is said that attempting it in any case will cause one to burst into flame and vanish.”
Lando considered this. “Makes sense. No matter how diffuse the gas and dust is, translight speeds will create that kind of friction. How deep could you - what is your expression? – ‘swim' into the wall if you had to? Far enough so that sensors couldn't detect you?”
It was Lehesu's turn to think. While he was doing so, a sudden burst of radio transmissions entered the Cave of the Elders. It caused some stir. Lando couldn't understand what was being said, but no one interrupted the conversation for a translation, so the gambler put it out of his mind.
At long last: “Yes, I believe such might be possible. If I follow your line of reasoning, you would have us conceal ourselves, we and all of the Oswaft, within the folds and billows of the wall until the fleet, believing in their despicable villainy that we had starved to death, gave up and went away to impose misfortune upon someone else. But what would you have us do about the molecular residue that-”
The gambler grinned. “I have that all figured out, my overlarge friend. It wouldn't take very much, would it? How about a little of my cargo, judiciously sprayed all over the place?”
“Lando! I believe the idea might work. Esteemed Elders, may I ask-”
“Silence, young one. Peace! We have something else to ponder at this moment, something very disturbing.”
“What's happening, Sen, what's going on?”
The giant spoke: “Bhoggihalysahonues' attempts to negotiate an end to these insane hostilities have ended in disaster! She, and all of her party - a thousand of our people - were murdered with energy-weapons almost the moment they appeared at the mouth of the ThonBoka and greeted the nearest vessel”
“I'm sorry to hear it, Sen...but, well, it doesn't really change things very much, does it?”
“I am afraid, Captainmasterlandocalrissiansir that it does. You see, unfortunately, and in their consternation - the details aren't very clear - the negotiation party shouted at the... 'cruiser' much as I did in an unthinking moment just now at the two Oswaft who brought you here so ill-usedly. “
“Yeah. I felt it, and it was a tight beam. The Courteous? What happened to her?” He had a bad feeling about this.
Sen gave the broadcast equivalent of a mournful sigh.
“She - your Courteous - was not well defended, as is your Millennium Falcon, by deflector-shields, for they thought our people harmless.
“Thus was the Courteous utterly destroyed.”
“Swell,” Lando said, more to himself than to the Elders. “Nothing like a premature war on our hands.”
“The rest of the fleet, with full shields up now, has entered the ThonBoka mouth to murder us all in retribution.”
XI
KLYN SHANGA GRINNED a humorless grin. “Well, Bern, you've really put your foot in it this time, old friend.”
The wiry little man on the fold-down cot spread his skinny arms and shrugged, returning his commander's rueful smile.
He wore a dark-green military shipsuit with a well-abraded band around the waist where he was used to carrying a gunbelt. Shanga's low-slung holster was likewise empty; no weapons were permitted in the cell-block of the Wennis' detention sector.
“You know what they say, Boss, sometimes you trick the sorcerer, sometimes the sorcerer tricks you.” He pursed his lips, tongue protruding generously, and made a rude and juicy noise.
An alarmed look playing momentarily over his broad and deeply seamed features, Shanga glanced around reflexively for listening devices.
His smaller associate laughed. “What're they gonna do, throw me in the clink for insubordination? That'd be like jailing a murderer for littering.” Harsh light from the naked overhead bulb reflected from the man's equally naked scalp. Where he did have hair, on the sides and back, it was clipped into a dirty gray stubble.
Shanga sat down on the cot beside his friend, extracted a pair of cigars from a pocket. There was a brief silence while they got them lit. “Well, I've got to admit, when you tried hijacking that auxiliary, you climbed pretty high on the wanted list. I wish to the Core you'd consulted me before you-”
“What, and have you wind up here, yourself? Boss, you know you'd have done the same thing I did. There are five pinnaces tucked away aboard this scow with the capability for faster-than-light travel, and our fighters can't hack it. If that blockade fleet moves in before we get to the nebula, we're gonna lose the Butcher!”
And our reason for living, Shanga thought, reading the same thoughts displayed on his friend's face. Bern Nuladeg was the only member of his squadron who went back with him to before his original retirement. They'd served their country together in d brief but bloody conflict with one of its neighbors, earning their wings, both of them becoming aces. When Shanga retired, Nuladeg had gone on to become a flight instructor, finally the commander of his nation-state's flight academy. The invasion from the stars had changed all of that.
Now they flew together in a squadron made up not only of their fellow countrymen but of personnel belonging to their former enemy, individuals from other nations, other planets in their system. They were all Renatasians, and they all wanted the same thing. Vengeance.
“I know, Bern, I know. That's why you did it on your own didn't take any of the others along. You were going to steal that lighter yourself - then what?”
The small, bald-headed figure chuckled. “Hadn't gotten that far along in my plans. Days before we reach the ThonBoka at this speed, Klyn, days! What can Gepta be thinking of, permitting the invasion to begin before we get there? I heard the story - had the ring of truth to it - and acted. Guess I would have swung around and offered you fellows a ride, if I'd had the chance. I dunno. What're they gonna do to me, do you suppose?”
Shanga shook his head. “I have a meeting - an 'audience,' he'd like to style it - with our gray-robed cousin in an hour or so. We're going to talk about it then. I won't lie to you, it doesn't look good. You should see the way he treats his own people.”
Nuladeg's laughter was practically a giggle now. “I know! That's what made swiping that machine so blasted easy: everybody was afraid to move for fear of getting terminally reprimanded! Whoever said dictatorship's efficient, Boss? It'd be funny if it weren't so downright stupid.” He drew on his cigar, b
lew a smoke ring toward the bulb in the ceiling. Then his laughter died along with the smile creasing his face.
“Klyn, promise me one thing: don't worry about me enough to stop this mission. Whatever you do. I mean it. I can take whatever they dish out, but I can't stand the thought-”
Bern Nuladeg's entire family had been killed by Imperial troopers enjoying a few hours off-duty time. It had been a lark for them, and had only finished what they'd actually been guilty of. The field commander for the group had dismissed it as a prank - the same commander was found the next morning, in his own bed, with a bayonet thrust through his lower jaw into his brain. No one had ever solved the mystery of how it had been done in a heavily guarded building on the grounds of the former flight academy, nor of who had done it or why.
“All right, old friend,” Shanga sighed. He'd always thought that Nuladeg, who was the better pilot, experienced with command responsibility, ought to have been running the tattered squadron. The little man had refused even the number-two position, citing an impulsiveness that no one had truly believed in until now. “I'll see what I can do. You're right, I'm afraid. I was thinking about those pinnaces myself, when I heard about the moves against the StarCave. I'll see what I can do and be back with you as soon as possible.”
He rapped loudly on the wall, pointedly ignoring the call button beside the force-fielded door. “Guards! Let me out of here! I have to see a toad about a man!”
A quarter of a galaxy away, the One, the Other, and the Rest raced to keep a rendezvous. They had come from even farther, and their speed was something no one in what Lando and his friends regarded as a civilization would have believed.
“We move so slowly!” the Other complained, plunging through hyperspace beside the One. “I fear we shall not get there on time!”
The One allowed himself to be distracted from his headlong course long enough to indicate a smile. “Impatience from you, after all this time, my friend? Truly, this is an era of changes. Never fear, we shall learn what we shall learn, regardless. I, too, would prefer that we-”
Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian Trilogy Page 40